@nerdfiles,
Never do I deny that a normal functioning brain satisfies a
necessary condition for all those human activities that we call "conscious," "engaged," "attentive," etc. The brain is essential (necessary) to make certain public criteria possible. So, in the general case of the term (human being), the human being's disposition to cry or become angry necessarily presupposes a certain level or configuration of brain functioning.
Thus, I assent to your claim that there need be a "certain degree of living brain." I am not entirely sure what that entails or implies, but nevertheless, I think it safe to agree with it.
When you use terms like "core of the matter" and "a certain degree," it is very important that you flesh out what these terms mean. Otherwise, I feel I may find myself assenting to a poetic device or a figurative term that I might very well do not understand the meaning of. Essentially, what does it mean to say "such-and-such is the core of the matter"? By saying this, in the case of cognitive neuroscience, are we giving our ontology to the category mistake, such as the one I am trying to rid us of? By saying "the core of the matter" are you attempting to, in a round-about way, imply that the brain can be predicated with such terms as "being angry," "being thoughtful," "being respectful", "having paid attention {in class yesterday}?"
It is essential that we
have a brain in order to be angry, thoughtful, respectful, and to have had paid attention to things in the past as well as to pay attention in the present and future. But no (empirical) evidence will make the proposition "Indeed, my brain felt hurt by your rudeness yesterday" have sense.
Drilling "deeper" down into the complexities of the brain will not make that statement have sense. The experience of thought is not just
more neurons being at work. Thought is of a category quite other than physical categories. Whether or not it is "mental" is another question. "The mental" as an ontological category is quite troublesome to deal with, but the psychological sciences are perhaps the best avenue to take. The neuro-psychological sciences may work with neuroscientists to correlate psychological predicates with neural states, but it still remains that no psychological predicate can be logically, or conceptually, identified with a neural state. And it is especially conceptually flawed to reduce one to the other (strong identification/reductionist/eliminativist).